An Ocean of Grass: The Last of the Tallgrass Prairie

Tallgrass prairie once covered 170 million acres of North America; less than four percent survives, and most of what remains rolls away on either side of this road. The Flint Hills endured because they couldn't be plowed: a skin of soil over flinty limestone defeated the sodbuster and left the hills to cattle, wind, and big bluestem grass that stands taller than a rider by autumn. K-177, a designated National Scenic Byway, crosses this survivor landscape for 47 unhurried miles, from the Santa Fe Trail town of Council Grove, where wagon trains took on their last supplies before Santa Fe, to tiny Cassoday, the self-declared Prairie Chicken Capital of the World. In between lie the limestone ranch buildings and bison herd of the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, a French Renaissance courthouse built of local stone in 1873, and horizon after horizon of what early travelers honestly called a sea of grass. This is the collection's great contrarian drive: no mountains, no cliffs, no hairpins, just distance, wind, meadowlarks, and light, and in April nights, entire hillsides rippling with the ranchers' ancient prairie fires. It asks you to slow down; repaid attention is the whole point.

Key Stops

Council Grove. One of the most historic small towns on the old frontier: here the Osage signed the 1825 treaty (under the Council Oak that named the town) allowing the Santa Fe Trail through, and wagon trains provisioned at the Last Chance Store before two months of open country. The Kaw Mission tells the story of the Kanza people for whom Kansas is named, and the Hays House has been feeding travelers since 1857, among the oldest continuously operating restaurants west of the Mississippi. Fuel, eat, and head south.

The open byway. Almost immediately the crop fields fall away and the hills take over: miles of open range, hand-stacked limestone fences from the 1880s, windmills, and cattle grazing to the skyline. Use the pullouts; every rise recomposes the view.

Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. The drive's centerpiece, just north of Strong City: the 1881 Spring Hill Ranch, whose three-story limestone barn and mansion anchor a preserve run in partnership between the National Park Service and The Nature Conservancy. Walk even a mile of the forty-plus miles of trails into the open prairie (the Scenic Overlook Trail earns its name), visit the one-room Fox Creek Schoolhouse, and look for the resident bison herd on the hills. Entry is free; seasonal bus tours reach the backcountry pastures.

Strong City. A railroad-era town whose arena has hosted the Flint Hills Rodeo every June since 1937, the oldest consecutive rodeo in Kansas. If your timing matches, it is pure, unpolished Americana.

Cottonwood Falls. Two minutes south and worth an hour: a brick-paved main street rises to the Chase County Courthouse, an 1873 French Renaissance confection of honey-colored local limestone and the oldest courthouse in Kansas still in use. Galleries, a classic small-town cafe, and the cottonwood-shaded falls of its namesake river round it out.

Schrumpf Hill Overlook. About three miles south of Cottonwood Falls, a designated overlook with interpretive panels where the byway's signature panorama spreads out: hills folding into hills until they dissolve into sky. Sunset here is the drive's defining image.

Matfield Green and Pioneer Bluffs. A hamlet of a few dozen souls that has become an unlikely arts outpost, with the historic ranch headquarters at Pioneer Bluffs just up the road preserving a century of Flint Hills ranching life through exhibits and events. The stretch of K-177 around it is many Kansans' favorite mile of road in the state.

Cassoday. The southern terminus: a gravel-street village where the byway meets the interstate, famous as the Prairie Chicken Capital of the World. In April, before dawn, the greater prairie-chickens gather on their booming grounds nearby for one of North America's strangest and most wonderful wildlife displays.

Driving Tips

Recalibrate what "scenic" means before you start. The prairie doesn't perform from a car window at 65 mph; it rewards stopping, walking a hundred meters into the grass, and listening to wind and meadowlarks. Budget stops the way you'd budget viewpoints on a mountain pass.

Chase the low light. Midday flattens the hills into monotony; sunrise and sunset carve them into velvet and gold. If you drive it only once, drive it in the last two hours of the day and finish at Schrumpf Hill.

Understand the April fires. Each spring, ranchers burn the prairie as the tribes and lightning did before them; it is what keeps the hills treeless and the grass vigorous. Night burns glowing along the horizons are unforgettable, but smoke can roll across the road: slow down, lights on, and never drive blind into a smoke bank.

Give the bison genuine room. The preserve's herd is wild and fast; keep at least a football field's distance on the trails, and never approach for photographs. They set the right of way everywhere they stand.

Save the gravel roads for dry days. The county backroads deeper into the hills are the connoisseur's Flint Hills, but the local clay turns to impassable gumbo when wet. Dry weather only, and watch the forecast.

Watch for deer and cattle guards. Deer own the dusk hours, and the byway's cattle guards announce themselves with a rumble; neither rewards speed.

Check small-town hours. The Hays House, the courthouse tours, and the galleries keep small-town schedules, with Sundays and Mondays thin; plan the meal stops as deliberately as the scenic ones.

For more information visit: Kansas Tourism: Flint Hills Scenic Byway